Monday, August 11, 2008

Laura EverszTWINS CLUB was founded in 2004 by Jennifer Glickman, holding son Leo, and Rhonda Talbot. Front row, left to right, are Evelyn and Audrey Talbot-Vega, and Eli Kurland.TODAY: Talbot with Evelyn (left) and Audrey.PRESCHOOL graduates Eli (left) and Leo Kurland, sons of Twins Club co-founder Jennifer Glickman.Jennifer Glickman and Rhonda Talbot—both pregnant with twins—met in 2003 while attending pre-natal yoga classes. After spotting “more than a few” sets of twins on Larchmont Blvd., Glickman, Hancock Park, and Talbot, Larchmont Village, decided to organize the Twins of Larchmont Club.The pair posted notices in stores and had business cards printed. But most of their members were recruited on the street. That hasn’t changed, said Talbot. “When Jennifer and I see twins on the street, they are accosted. We say hello, then we give them our card.”That explains why the group’s roster that included the names of 11 families in 2004 today numbers 81.Many of the families gathered recently for the Twins of Larchmont reunion, held annually in Glickman’s backyard. Four and five-year olds and their dads—club veterans—splashed in the pool, while the “new little guys and their parents got to know each other in the shade of tents.” Being around families with older babies gives new parents hope they can get through those first few months, said Talbot.At the reunion, “I met seven or eight families I’d never met before,” Talbot said. She and Glickman spent most of their time talking to new members. “The discussions are always the same. They revolve around nannies, schedules, preschool.”Topics change, however, as the twins get older. Now, instead of nap schedules, par-ents are talking about the pros and cons of their children attending kindergarten in separate classrooms. The consensus: "I don’t know of a parent who’ll keep them to-gether,” said Talbot. “All the teachers advise against it.”The club hasn’t changed much over the years. “It’s still very much a support thing,” said Talbot. “It’s really about the comfort you get in knowing that you’re going through similar things.”You don’t have to leave home to find that comfort and support. In addition to the roster with names, phone numbers and birth dates, the website also features a blog, and links to topics from nannies to minivans, preschools to preemies.Do yourself a favor and log on to www.twinsoflarchmont.com, said Talbot, recalling how she felt when her daughters were babies. “You need all the help you can get.”

Saturday, January 19, 2008

So I won’t stab my husband to death in his sleep
Go back on medication
Run away from home
Run over a pedestrian for not using the crosswalk
Read my mothers vicious emails that usually suggest I am an incompetent mother
Write my son’s college essay
Throw away my children’s stuffed animals which somehow multiply while we sleep.

Before I could write, I drew the images in my head and projected them onto bare walls. Typically stories concerning young girls my age being abducted by the neighborhood psycho (he was usually missing fingers.) The girls always managed to be saved by some magical power they discovered in the nick of time.
I needed to get the images out so I could function in the real world
My toddler stories sometimes involved Jesus Christ being attacked by Godzilla and often I was the heroine who not only could fly but conquer the beast and save Jesus.
I graduated to drawing these images out onto paper, stacks by the hundreds hidden under my bed.
When I learned to write, they became actual stories with more life like situations, but not less drama.

My head is abuzz with characters, situations, tragedies ready to unfold. The characters wake me up, yell at me, demanding to be heard. I sometimes yell back. I talk to myself a lot and mostly my family does not mind.
If I don’t write it down, it works me over in the way of physical pain, say, a migraine.
It’s a place to put my many personalities which seems to be multiplying at an alarming rate; kind of like the stuffed animals.

Prose is my first love, though I can whip out a half hour during a bad insomniac episode when I am feeling particularly homicidal.
I’m reckless and if it weren’t for this outlet, it’s quite possible I would weigh 500 pounds.

I don’t write to change the world, make an impact or to entertain. I can’t imagine being that presumptuous. But I do love when someone tells me how they laughed or were moved or related.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I write. I find myself in front of a computer and eight hours later I realize I’m starving and dehydrated. No other thing I do transports me this way and makes time disappear; with the exception of one mescaline trip I took as a teenager where the morning became the night in five minutes.

I love words; I don’t care what form. I devour books alcoholically. Once I couldn’t read or write because of eye surgery and I nearly lost my mind. I scared the other recovering patients on the ward by bumping into walls, then coming into their rooms unannounced to ask what they were reading. Would they mind sharing a paragraph; an anecdote; anything.

I don’t think I am alone. Writers are an odd breed. Most of them understand it’s a curse and a blessing. Most of them live in pain. Which is why I find it so profoundly sad that on top of their own self-incriminations, heaps more are laid on them by the corporations they rely on to possibly get paid for what they need to do.

Artists, in some ways, are like children. They depend on “adults” to take care of their needs, in this case financial ones. Once certain writers gain a level of achievement they can finally sigh a breath of relief, though often short-lived, but, hey, they will take it.

But just like children, they bring a kind of joy to others that is can’t be found elsewhere. A world without writers reminds me of what it might be like to have a world without children. Joyless, predictable, boring, lonely, and quiet. Kind of like what television is becoming.

Sometimes I envision these greedy corporate heavies hoarding their residual pennies like mean teachers hoarding recess candy who sincerely believe if they stay mean, the children will behave. Well, they don’t behave. They get resentful and find other sources for their candy.